Daily Archives: April 5, 2007

It has happened. I have joked on many-a-occasion that with residency restriction laws the way they are, sex offenders will soon be living on the sides of highways and under bridges or in Montanta/Wyoming. I have never been sorrier to be correct. The blogosphere and mainstream media have picked up the latest news out of Florida that the state is “housing” sex offenders under a bridge:

The Florida Department of Corrections says there are fewer and fewer places in Miami-Dade County where sex offenders can live because the county has some of the strongest restrictions against this kind of criminal in the country.Florida’s solution: house the convicted felons under a bridge that forms one part of the causeway.

Five men — all registered sex offenders convicted of abusing children — live along the causeway because there is a housing shortage for Miami’s least welcome residents.

“I got nowhere I can go!” says sex offender Rene Matamoros, who lives with his dog on the shore where Biscayne Bay meets the causeway.

This is absolutely absurd and has got to stop. Enough is enough.

With nowhere to put these men, the Department of Corrections moved them under the Julia Tuttle Causeway. With the roar of cars passing overhead, convicted sex offender Kevin Morales sleeps in a chair to keep the rats off him.”The rodents come up next to you, you could be sleeping the whole night and they could be nibbling on you,” he said.

Morales has been homeless and living under the causeway for about three weeks. He works, has a car and had a rented apartment but was forced to move after the Department of Corrections said a swimming pool in his building put him too close to children.

The convicted felons may not be locked up anymore, but they say it’s not much of an improvement.

“Jail is anytime much better than this, than the life than I’m living here now,” Morales said. “[In jail] I can sleep better. I get fed three times a day. I can shower anytime that I want to.”

The jury deliberated and came back with good questions twice. My client was facing 1-10 years in prison. She had previously been offered the minimum in a plea deal. I previously told her to plea because her case was so crappy. Well, our arguments went over pretty well b/c we got a guilty verdict on the misdemeanor lesser included charge. She got sentenced to about half of what she would have gotten had she pled originally. Now that’s a win!!!

The judge I am in front of is being a total douche. He knows its my first trial, so I don’t know if he’s being so asinine as a learning tool or just because. I don’t know a lot of stuff that maybe I should, and I definitely am having a hard time articulating my thoughts, but when he cuts me off in the middle of my motion and rules on an issue, I can’t do anything else. At least until he realizes what I was trying to do and admonishes me in front of the court for being unarticulate/unprepared/moronic/a horrible attorney/someone who should just quit law and go into selling my body. Then I just have to suck it up and say “Yes, Your Honor” and wait to get to my office to start sobbing. The thing is, my co-counsel who is a bit more experienced than me is having a hard time with him too. She didn’t know what he was talking about most of the time during his rulings either.Has anyone else had a horrible first trial experience, or is it just me? I knew this would be hard but I didn’t expect for it to be so miserable. Does trial get better or am I just not cut out for this?